It took a few days longer than usual, but we finally have an opening night film for the 2018 Venice Film Festival. Damien Chazelle’s “First Man” will kick off the fall festival season on Wednesday, Aug. 29. It’s the Oscar winner’s second time opening Venice following “La La Land” in 2016.
The Universal Pictures release is also expected to play two other Chazelle mainstays, Telluride and Toronto, and a New York Film Festival screening isn’t out of the cards either.
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Other recent Venice openers besides “La La Land” include last year’s “Downsizing,” “Everest,” “Birdman,” “Gravity,” “The Reluctant Fundamentalist,” “The Ides of March” and “Black Swan.” For those not calculating at home, just one film has won Best Picture and opened Venice this decade while four have been nominated. When you’re playing the awards game the latter are odds you’ll happily take.
Guillermo del Toro, whose “Shape of Water” trumped at Venice and the Oscars last year, is the head of the competition jury. A number of other awards contenders are expected to be part of the festival’s overall slate which should be announced at the end of the month.
“First Man” follows the life of Neil Armstrong as he prepares to lead the Apollo 11 mission to land on the surface of the moon. It features Chazelle’s “La La Land” star Ryan Gosling as Armstrong, Claire Foy as Armstrong’s wife Janet Shearon, Corey Stoll as Buzz Aldrin and Shea Wingham as Gus Grissom. Other members of the cast include Kyle Chandler, Jason Clarke, Christopher Abbot, Lukas Haas and Pablo Schreiber.
The film also reunites Chazelle with his Oscar-winning collaborators composer Justin Hurwitz, cinematographer Linus Sandgren and editor Tom Cross.
The Venice Film Festival runs from Aug. 29-Sept. 8. “First Man” opens nationwide on Oct. 12.